Using Reading Horizons with Read 180

Charlene Koplin
Resource English Teacher
Granite High School, Salt Lake City, Utah
11th and 12th grade students/2005–2006

We had several high school special education students whose decoding skills were not strong enough to participate in our Read 180 class. (Read 180 does not have a decoding component.) Initially, we chose to enroll these students in our Reading Horizons class. This proved highly effective. After completing the Reading Horizons program in one semester, they were ready to join the Read 180 class! They began Read 180 with confidence and heightened motivation because they had demonstrated dramatic improvement in their ability to recognize words through Reading Horizons. We also had students with strong word-recognition skills and extremely low written language levels. These students chose to take the Reading Horizons class to improve their spelling skills. As they completed Reading Horizons, their decoding skills jumped up to their grade level or higher, and their spelling skills improved markedly. The wonderful, unanticipated outcome was that mastery of Reading Horizons allowed the students to accelerate their achievement in Read 180—and their other mainstream courses.

The program not only teaches learning disabled students how to read, but it also increases their overall self-esteem. It allows them to improve in their class work and outside life. Joe* went from a C and D student who was getting involved with the wrong crowd to an A and B honor roll student involved in community activities. This may sound extreme, but this student’s self-esteem was so low that he expressed he felt worthless because he could not read. Once the reading instruction began, his situation drastically improved. Additionally, my students’ spelling and writing abilities have improved. The method of coding that the program teaches aids learning disabled students in thinking about the words as they spell and write them. The program concentrates on comprehension and word meaning throughout each level and lesson.

The Reading Horizons program has been a blessing for my students. It has opened up a whole new world. I have seen such great improvements in their overall lives in terms of schoolwork and self-esteem. I believe that it has saved many of my students from going down the wrong track in life. They have taken leaps and bounds in their reading abilities.

*Name has been changed.